


a graveyard smash

by brophigenia



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Haunted House, But only a bit, Casual Sex, Drinking, Ghost Noah Czerny, Ghost Sex, Halloween, Hand Jobs, Haunted Houses, Hook-Up, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, blame her, no dreamer powers, no glendower, y'all this is all ghostie's fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-12-04 01:16:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia
Summary: They pulled up to the haunted house at precisely 9:27 PM. Ronan knew this because Gansey announced it to him when they arrived before ordering him tobe cool, Lynch.As if Gansey was any kind of authority oncool.(AKA, Gansey and Ronan go to a haunted house, Noah is a ghost, and Ronan and Noah have ~ghost sex.~ Ooh.)





	a graveyard smash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glitterghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitterghost/gifts).

> as Cardi B would say, ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

_ do what thou will with me  _

_ i know not what i am.  _

_ *** _

“Come on, Lynch!” Gansey called, exasperated, from his safe cocoon inside their shower. He had to shout to be heard over the rattling of their pipes, and Ronan was just trying to ignore the hot scent of him, suffocating, contained in the steam that slowly rose like horror movie fog out the top of the shower curtain. “Be a sport!” It was exactly the sort of thing Ronan expected of Gansey, who was the walking embodiment of Nancy Drew’s boyfriend… Nate? Nick? Ned? all grown up in seasonally-appropriate polo shirts and matching sweaters. 

Actually, Gansey was more like the walking embodiment of Nancy herself, Ronan mused, and lamented that he could never share this knowledge with anyone else, because then he’d have to explain how he knew who the fuck Nancy Drew was in the first place. 

(It wasn’t even his fault; his mom had  _ really  _ wanted a daughter, and when none materialized she’d rallied and made do with what she had. At least he wasn’t Declan, who’d ended up learning how to knit baby booties and still did so on occasion, when he was  _ especially  _ stressed. Having working knowledge of the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books was hardly  _ knit one, purl two.)  _

“I’ve got plans tonight, Dick.” Ronan bellowed back, taking a swig from the orange juice carton. 

Gansey set aside his sugar baron prudery for a moment to draw back the curtain far enough that he could poke his head out and arch one unamused brow at Ronan.  _ “Really.”  _ Gansey stated, deeply skeptical, gesturing towards Ronan’s state of shirtlessness on their couch with the orange juice carton balanced on his abs, a bag of Bugles open in the floor next to him that he was periodically sharing with Chainsaw. Ronan hadn’t left the apartment in two days. It was… not unfair skepticism. 

Because Ronan, despite his blackguard exterior, was molten putty in the finely-wrought hands of Richard Campbell Gansey III, he found himself very shortly in the passenger seat of the Pig, wearing a bedsheet with holes cut out for his eyes. 

“This is fucking stupid.” He said, muffled, beneath the smothering fabric. “Why couldn’t we have used  _ your  _ sheet? Better fucking yet, why couldn’t we have  _ not come out?”  _

Gansey shot him a longsuffering look and hit the button for the radio, playing the local indie station he’d taken to favoring lately with an intensity bordering on obsessive. Ronan  _ really  _ hoped all of this fuckery was over a girl, and not just Gansey turning over a new personality leaf called  _ folksy pop punk fusion band enthusiast.  _

They pulled up to the haunted house at precisely 9:27 PM. Ronan knew this because Gansey announced it to him when they arrived before ordering him to  _ be cool, Lynch.  _ As if  _ Gansey  _ was any kind of authority on  _ cool.  _

Ronan skulked behind Gansey, who was wearing a plastic king’s crown atop his head and a possibly-historically-accurate velvet doublet over his polo shirt, sheet billowing around him in the slight breeze as they approached the cast tent set up next to the house. It was helpfully labeled  _ EMPLOYEES ONLY - DO NOT ENTER.  _

Gansey, of course, entered with not a second thought. Or, possibly, a first one. 

Ronan, with a quickly muttered prayer for patience not to  _ murder him,  _ followed with only a brief pause of hesitation. 

Inside, the tent reeked of pot smoke and incense and was filled with half-costumed townies. The object of Gansey’s affection was apparently not present, if the way he visibly deflated was any indication. A young woman wearing a cliched fortune teller costume and a truly impressive amount of fake blood waved at them both, though, and called Gansey by name as she indicated he take a seat next to her on a sagging, possibly mildewed couch. 

“Blue will be done in just a minute.” She said, and took a drag off the joint held nimbly between her middle and ring fingers. Her fingernails caught the low light in the tent, shrink-wrapped in metallic gold foil and filed to sharp points. “She had to take over for Norman, he had a little…  _ accident _ with the chainsaw.” 

Gansey nodded very seriously, as if this was a normal sentence that normal people uttered. Ronan snaked a hand out from beneath his sheet to snag a red solo cup of warm beer, chugging it as fast as he possibly could without vomiting. He  _ had  _ to see this girl. In his mind she was the smalltown equivalent of whatever supermodel was hottest right now— Kate Upton or Middleton or whoever the fuck.  _ Blue.  _ What the fuck kind of name was  _ Blue?  _ The kind that pot-smoking hippie haunted house working townies had, apparently.  _ Hot  _ pot-smoking hippie haunted house working townies. 

Ronan briefly imagined Helen in his place, sitting on the moldy couch in one of her power suits, all long legs and five hundred dollar heels and disdain. It wasn’t a pleasant image. Instead, he imagined himself at home, on their own (non-moldy) couch, playing Super Smash Bros and drinking better beer than this hot piss. 

“There she is.” The woman said, and her grin grew until it most closely resembled the expression that a lioness made before it devoured an unsuspecting gazelle. Ronan wished he could snag the joint from her fingers without A.) being devoured or B.) catching his sheet on fire. Gansey snapped upright faster than a jackknife. Ronan looked over at the entrance to the tent to glimpse the mystery hot girl and did not see  _ anyone. _

Then he looked approximately two feet lower, and found her in (presumably fake) bloodstained overalls and a tee shirt that read  _ FEMINISTS AGAINST CAPITALISM.  _ Blue (Sargent, as he would later learn, as in the fortune tellers who had A4 flyers advertising their skills stapled all over town) was just about the complete antithesis of everything Ronan imagined Gansey’s townie dreamgirl to be. In fact, the only thing that  _ wasn’t  _ totally off base was the fact that she was, in fact, a girl. 

Gansey lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of her, and left Ronan with their…  _ friend  _ to go to her side, saying something that made Blue both blink in surprise and smile all fond and small at him. The kind of smile that told Ronan his best friend’s feelings and attentions weren’t misplaced. 

Blue had a nice smile, he’d give her that. White and straight and contrasting nicely with the cinnamon of her complexion. She  _ also  _ had the hilarious ability to tell Gansey off for being  _ Gansey  _ in such a way that he was left speechless and not ready to come back with some witty repartee. 

She mercilessly teased Gansey for his polo shirt/medieval doublet combo and barely spared half a glance to Ronan and his bedsheet, only commenting that it was a  _ classic choice.  _

If it had been up to  _ Ronan,  _ that would’ve been the end of their evening of local color. 

Of course, like most things in Ronan’s life, the fault was all Gansey’s when he found himself trailing the two through an  _ exclusive  _ tour through the many rooms of the  _ Most Haunted House In Henrietta!  _

Gansey jumped at every scare, every revving chainsaw and screaming skeleton. He and Blue walked close enough that their shoulders brushed with each step, their hands hanging down conspicuously at their sides like they were trying to signal to each other that handholding wouldn’t be out of the question but couldn’t work up the nerve to just  _ do it. _

It was, Ronan could admit, a more entertaining way to spend the evening than most. 

He followed them at a bit of a distance after a while, but was taken aback by a zombie nun that reminded him of his old PSR teacher, Sister Hermengilde. Once he’d recovered, Ronan looked around and realized they’d left him behind without realizing it. 

_ “Come on, Lynch!”  _ He muttered under his breath, imitating Gansey.  _ “Be a sport! I’ll only abandon you twenty minutes in! Be a pal! Tally Ho!”  _

“Are you talking to yourself?” A voice at his shoulder asked, making Ronan flinch and very narrowly stop himself from swinging on reflex. 

The source of the voice was a tall blonde that made Ronan’s mouth go dry all of a sudden, decked out in a costume that wouldn’t have been out-of-place in a Charles Dickens biopic on the BBC. Tiny Tim goes to prep school. 

_ Actually,  _ Ronan was pretty positive it was an old Aglionby uniform. He’d seen an old photo on the mantle at Gansey’s family home of a whole group of boys wearing something similar, though theirs was in much better shape. 

“You work in this hellhole?” Ronan asked instead of answering, crossing his arms beneath his sheet, though it covered his flexing biceps and ruined the desired effect. 

The blonde guy grinned, cocking his head. For a moment he didn’t speak, and when he did it was with a tone of wonder, like he didn’t expect a response. Ronan couldn’t see why; he was tall and blonde and hot, even if he was a little dirt-smudged and tired around the eyes. 

“Yeah.” He replied, a beat too late. “Yeah, uh, I do. Behind the scenes stuff.” Ronan nodded, and then pulled the sheet off, leaving it pooled on the floor in front of him. “I’m Noah. Uh. Czerny. Noah Czerny.” Noah Czerny stuttered, and Ronan grinned back at him, hungry. He wasn’t this sort of person, but something about Noah made him  _ want  _ to be. Like there was something magnetic and addicting in the air around where Noah stood in his old-fashioned clothes, dusty from spending time in the belly of this rundown Victorian mansion of a beast. 

“Ronan.” Ronan said in return, letting his grin turn into something warmer, no teeth showing. Something less  _ intimidating,  _ like Gansey was always saying during his droning seminars on  _ how to flirt without seeming like you’re challenging someone to a bare knuckle cage fight.  _ As if he had any kind of game whatsoever. “Lynch.” 

“Ronan.” Noah repeated, and took a few quick steps forward on the balls of his feet, nimble as a bird but unsure, still. Marveling at the floor like he was surprised it held him up. Ronan wondered about the building being up to code. 

_ “Ronan.” _ Noah said again, and then reached out just one finger to trace the edge of Ronan’s jaw slowly, teasingly; he had nice hands. Ronan turned his head quick to nip at the very tip of that exploring finger, liking the startled squawk of a laugh Noah let out in response. He was just…  _ cute.  _ It was a lot, especially because Ronan didn’t really go for  _ cute.  _ Kavinsky certainly had not been  _ cute,  _ and Gansey and Adam both were something more along the lines of  _ classically handsome,  _ so for him to be so struck by Noah’s cute  _ everything  _ was quite a new development. 

Noah curved his hands over Ronan’s broad shoulders, stroking them restlessly, and Ronan held his breath as he tipped his jaw, waiting for the cool press of Noah’s chapped lips to his. 

It was… unlike any other kiss Ronan had experienced. He only had a few to compare it to— the couple of toothsome smears from Kavinsky and the single time he’d kissed Gansey, deep in a bottle of whiskey the morning after they’d buried Niall Lynch, both of them in rumpled black suits on the bathroom floor. Still,  _ this _ kiss was a whole other breed of a thing. Like a lightning strike.  _ Shocking.  _

And  _ good.  _ Ronan found himself backed up against a nearby wall before he knew he’d even been moved, Noah’s kiss gone fervent as his hands roamed all over Ronan, anywhere he could reach. 

“What do you like?” Noah asked, breath fanning cool and scentless over Ronan’s face. “What do you want? What can I do?” 

Ronan’s head tipped back and hit the wall with a thud as he tried to get himself in order.  _ What do you like? What do you like?  _ Noah’s question echoed in his ears. 

“Whatever.” Ronan shrugged, and attempted a casual tone. “Whatever you want to do.” 

Noah grinned wider than he had before, impossibly. He spun Ronan and worked at the fastenings of his jeans, snugged up tight to Ronan’s back. It was a good weight, though he was colder than Ronan expected— like he needed to wear a thicker jacket, maybe. 

“Tell me if you want something different.” Noah mumbled in his ear, going to suck what would probably turn into a truly impressive hickey into the thin skin he found there as one hand plunged into the front of Ronan’s pants and underwear, curling around his half-hard cock. For a moment, neither of them moved; Ronan wasn’t even sure either of them  _ breathed.  _ He swallowed thickly and groaned thinly from his throat, abs clenching as he tried not to go off just from this, Noah only  _ holding  _ him. 

“You’re so  _ warm.”  _ Noah murmured, and then started to stroke him, flicking his wrist on each upstroke like it was muscle memory— like that was how he did it for himself. Ronan tried to hold himself still and couldn’t, hips bucking and head thrashing side to side. 

_ Don’t stop,  _ he wanted to beg out loud, but couldn’t make his mouth move. It was so good. His stomach was trembling finely, and he rose briefly onto his tiptoes when he came with a shout, striping the dusty wall with it. Noah worked him through it, jerking him off until he was soft and oversensitive, twitching with the sensation. 

“Stop, stop,” Ronan breathed, and leaned more of his weight back onto Noah, who nuzzled at him before stepping back, himself. Ronan turned, ready to offer his (admittedly inexperienced) services in returning the favor and found that he was alone in the room, door ajar and cool breeze coming in from the open window. His sheet was gone, too. 

“What the fuck.” Ronan muttered, and did his pants back up, brow furrowed as his stomach sank. 

He found Gansey on the porch, leaning against the railing and listening avidly to Blue Sargent talk, hearts in his eyes. 

“Ronan!” Gansey cried, straightening, when he was spotted. “Where’s your costume?” 

Ronan muttered half an excuse, shrugging, and then leant against a nearby post, gesturing that they continue their conversation about the morality of standardized testing and its inherent bias against students of color. His cheeks felt hot, still, and there was a weakness to his knees that made him want to be at Monmouth, in his bed. His now-sheetless bed. 

“Ronan? Ronan!” Gansey was saying, and finally jostled Ronan’s elbow to catch his attention. “Are you  _ alright?” _

Ronan blinked. “What time does Noah get off?” He asked Blue, ignoring Gansey and his concerned brow furrow. 

Blue started in surprise, and then leaned back, narrowing her eyes. 

“Noah who?” She asked, as if in confusion. 

Ronan huffed out a breath. Impatient and off-balance, still. He could feel Noah’s hands on him, still, Noah’s mouth at his ear. 

“Tall guy, blonde, dressed like Oliver Twist? Noah Czerny.” Ronan described, gesturing with his hand Noah’s height and general hotness. 

“I don’t know anybody like that. Nobody named Noah works here.” Blue said shortly, and then turned back to Gansey. “I’ve got to go help clean up. Talk to you… later.” Her exit was swift and abrupt, leaving Gansey with moony eyes and a forlorn twist to his mouth that he quickly hid behind his politician face. 

“What was  _ that?”  _ Gansey asked as they walked back to where they’d parked the Pig earlier in the night. 

Ronan shot a parting glance over his shoulder at the towering old house and thought he saw a flash of white in the uppermost window of the attic. 

“Nothing, G.” He replied, rolling the stiffness from his shoulders. In the Pig’s rear view window he could see the hint of a mouth-shaped bruise peeking out from behind one of his ears. “Nothing at all.” 

_ *** _

_ thought you knew me from the start  _

_ that i was into bad things.  _

**Author's Note:**

> follow me @ brophigenia.tumblr.com


End file.
